Microsoft and LinkedIn officially sealed the deal Wednesday morning, closing its $26.2 billion acquisition. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner made the announcement LinkedIn official on its blog. The official status comes almost six months after news first broke of the acquisition.
Earlier this week, the European Commission announced that it had approved the acquisition.
LinkedIn also created a bit of buzz and controversy this week by removing its search filters within its Premium Product.
Rumors have also been percolating of a potential new website redesign that could arrive in the United States as early as next week. A preview of the newly design website shows vast similarities to the mobile version and mobile application of its product. Users can expect new messaging features, which are designed to be competitive with Slack and Facebook Messenger.
Improved messaging capability could be a huge win for sourcers and recruiters alike. The ability to message candidates via a chat over an InMail or LinkedIn message could be a real time saver.
Missing from the mobile application and mobile version of LinkedIn are its groups. LinkedIn removed its cap on the number of groups a member can join. In the past, LinkedIn limited its users to a maximum of 50 groups. Group interest and activity has steadily declined on LinkedIn, which has many speculating that this feature could be retired in the near future. A preview of the new version is featured below:
LinkedIn Groups were once a popular area to source candidates. LinkedIn Groups have allowed sourcers the ability to find candidates based on their likes, interests, industry and skill. Luckily, candidates can still be found through a simple XRay search: site:linkedin.com/in “Dallas Ft. Worth Texas Recruiters Network”
Microsoft has remained mum about its intentions with LinkedIn. Many have predicted enhanced upselling to its LinkedIn Recruiter users. Other media outlets have suggested LinkedIn’s data can help advance Microsoft Dynamics and Office 365.
This is a developing story. SourceCon will continue to update it throughout the day.